Halfway through the year, British Recorded Music Industry, has released its bi-annual report. Also known as BPI, the Official Charts Company of the UK, data shows the popular rise in dance music within the United Kingdom.
The market share for dance music is up to 16.3 percent, which is the highest since 2006 (18.2%). Sales for singles have increased by 19 percentage points from this time last year, while album sales are up by over 33 percentage points. The increased popularity in dance music is no hidden fact, even with the rapid rise in the past few years, the change in figures from last year are huge.
Dance music, is sitting above R’n’B, and below pop and rock. Very impressive when considering all of the musical talent that has arisen from the UK. 
BPI CEO, Geoff Taylor, included in the report, “It’s drawing in artists normally associated with other genres, such as Hip Hop and Dubstep. These fresh influences are giving 2013’s Dance music an edge which is really cutting through to fans”.
An example being the coverage of Zedd and Lady Gaga working together. Many artists outside of EDM are gaining a curiosity, which is exposing more people to the scene, in return creating a larger interest. You can speculate on the positives and negatives.
With the influx of data being provided by BPI, it lays great claim to the economic prosperity associated within dance music. EDC in Vegas last month brought 300 million dollars of revenue to Sin City. Thus, any groups looking to expand the UK festival scene, much like EDC in London next week, now have useful information to those opposed. Undoubted popularity and proven economic value, sounds like the perfect combo.
Key Trends-As Provided by BPI
- Dance music accounts for more than 1 in 6 (16.3%) of the singles sold in the UK over the past six months (Jan-June 2013) compared to 14.1% for the same period in 2012 – Dance music’s highest share of the singles market since 2006.
- Dance is now the third most popular genre with music fans after Pop and Rock and ahead of R’n’B.
- Daft Punk’s Get Lucky took just 69 days to pass the landmark of 1m sales in the UK.
- Dance is thriving on the albums front too – accounting for almost 1 in 10 sales in the albums market.
- In April, Calvin Harris became the first artist in UK chart history to achieve eight top 10 hits from the same album, 18 Months – overtaking Michael Jackson’s record of seven, and shifting more than 4.2m tracks in the process.
- May saw six of the top 10 best-selling singles come from Dance acts – Daft Punk ft. Pharrell Williams & Nile Rodgers; Rudimental ft. Ella Eyre; Chris Malinchak; David Guetta ft. Ne-Yo & Akon; Calvin Harris & Ellie Goulding; and Armin Van Buuren ft. Trevor Guthrie.
- Rounding off a strong six months, a tally of ten Dance tracks sold more than a quarter of a million copies, including Waiting All Night by Rudimental ft. Ella Eyre, White Noise by Disclosure ft. Aluna George and Need U (100%) by Duke Dumont ft. A*M*E.
- Dance debutants continued their reign in the Charts, where Disclosure’s Settle swooped straight in at No.1 in early June and Rudimental’s first studio album Home landed the top spot in May.
- Demand is also being fuelled by fans who are increasingly digitally-engaged, with nearly half (46.9%) downloading Dance albums (compared to the average of 37.4% for albums in general).
Read the full report here
